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EDMONTON — More Canadians trust Andrew Scheer to manage Canada’s immigration than Justin Trudeau, and more than half say the Liberals have been too soft on border issues, says new polling from the Angus Reid Institute.

According to the poll, released hours before Monday’s English leaders’ debate, 28 per cent of respondents believe Scheer is best placed to handle the immigration file, whereas 22 per cent believe that of Trudeau, and 18 per cent side with Jagmeet Singh, the New Democratic Party leader.

The polling also shows that there’s a reasonable level of contentment with the Liberals’ four-year record on immigration: 47 per cent believe the government has done well, while 53 per cent feel they’ve done poorly. Six per cent of Conservative voters say they feel very positively about the Liberal record, whereas 35 per cent of voters feel very negatively about it.

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A majority of 56 per cent say the Trudeau government has been too soft on asylum seekers; just 26 per cent are satisfied with the government’s approach.

Saudi teenager Rahaf Mohammed al-Qunun (C) is welcomed by Foreign Affairs Chrystia Freeland (R) at Pearson International airport on January 12, 2019, afetr she was given asylum in Canada.LARS HAGBERG/AFP/Getty Images

The polling, conducted in late September, found that many Canadians under-estimated the number of immigrants who come to Canada each year. At present, Canada accepts some 300,000 immigrants each year; unlike in European countries, where many over-estimate the number of immigrants, the poll says, 33 per cent of respondents estimated the figure was between 200,000 and 300,000 and 20 per cent thought fewer than 200,000 were accepted each year.

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Indeed, only 20 per cent of respondents were able to correctly identify the government target for immigration.

Once respondents were informed of the levels, near identical numbers of respondents felt the numbers were just right (39 per cent) or too many (40 per cent) while 13 per cent said the levels were too low. There were significant regional variations here: In Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba, 47 per cent of respondents felt immigration was too high, whereas 37 per cent felt that way in British Columbia. Atlantic Canada had the highest number of respondents, at 17 per cent, who felt too few immigrants were accepted to Canada.

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Unsurprisingly, these figures translate into the party support one would expect: 65 per cent of those who are planning to cast a ballot for Scheer’s Conservative Party of Canada believe immigration is too high, and 62 per cent of planned voters for Maxime Bernier’s People’s Party of Canada and 47 per cent of Bloc Québécois voters also feel that way.

Fifty-eight per cent of Liberal voters think the number is just right, and 28 per cent of NDP voters and 30 per cent of Green voters believe there should be more immigration.

As well, the polling shows Canadians don’t have a good grasp on the country of origin for most newcomers.

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“The most startling data surrounds emigration from Middle East and North Africa,” the poll says.

Indeed, a whopping two-thirds of respondents (64 per cent) are under the mistaken impression that the majority of Canada’s immigrants are from that region. In fact, just 12 per cent come from the Middle East and North Africa; the majority come from Asia, east Asia and southeast Asia.

Shachi Kurl, the executive director of the Angus Reid Institute, said part of the reason for the misunderstanding could be that while Canadians have had a robust public conversation about refugee resettlement, especially from Syria, this hasn’t really happened on immigration itself.

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“We have not heard our leadership … talking really about the economic case for immigration and how Canada actually goes to great lengths to ensure that the immigrants who are coming in are for the most part highly skilled, educated and ready to work,” Kurl said.

That said, generally speaking, 51 per cent of all Canadians don’t care where immigrants come from. Quebec appears to be the outlier: only 35 per cent of Quebecers would agree. This is reflected in vote intention: 51 per cent of Conservative and Bloc voters say immigrants should be European, “at least twice as many as who say the same among Liberal, NDP or Green supporters,” says the report.

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Sixty-two per cent of respondents said they believe immigrants (excluding refugees here) should have to speak one official language, a view that jumps to 77 per cent of Bloc and Conservative voters and is highest in Alberta (68 per cent) and Quebec (69 per cent).

But still, 38 per cent of Canadians say immigrants should be allowed to learn upon arrival, a view that’s highest among NDP voters, where only 43 per cent believe they must have language skills on arrival.

The polling also shows some marked differences regarding the economic benefit of immigration.

“Canada has not had a ‘replacement fertility rate,’ a rate of domestic fertility high enough to sustain the population, since 1971,” the report notes.

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Yet, even though economists predict a no-immigration scenario — which no major party is proposing — would be disastrous, less than half of all Conservative voters (43 per cent) say Canada’s economic growth is endangered without immigration, compared to 75 per cent of Liberals who agree with that statement. Unsurprisingly, this shows up in another form, too: 41 per cent of Tories say new immigrants take too many Canadian jobs, compared to just 18 per cent of Liberals (a figure that’s roughly the same as the Greens and the NDP.)

Again it’s up to our political leaders to explain how immigration works in this country, who’s coming in, why they come in, Kurl said. “It hasn’t really been happening.”

The poll was of 1,522 Canadian adults who are members of Angus Reid Forum, a grouping of people who participate in polls. The margin of error is +/- 2.5 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

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